How is it that receivers have run so unencumbered, so free and easy against the Giants that it actually looks as if the defensive approach is to avoid all contact with the other team?

How is it that, for instance, a nondescript Seahawk tight end named Will Heller saunters off the line of scrimmage, coasts into the end zone and catches a 10-yard touchdown pass without so much as a nudge or a how-do-you-do from anyone in a Giants uniform?

Let cornerback R.W.

McQuarters explain how.

“That was me,” McQuarters said of the busted coverage in Seattle. “I let my eyes get me in trouble. I was covering the tight end and basically trying to do two things at once, not really focusing. My job was to cover the tight end, I was trying to cover two people. I saw the back [Mack Strong] come out and I was thinking, ‘they’re getting ready to throw it to the back, I need to go make a play,’ and right when I was in that pause in between that’s where they threw it to the tight end.

That’s just on me.” Accepting blame was a hot topic of discussion the past two weeks, when the Giants tried to get a handle on the array of breakdowns in their secondary. They licked their wounds from the debacle in Seattle, spent several days self-scouting themselves, talked, talked and talked some more about the communication lapses that led to far too many “you-got-him” moments that resulted in no one getting much of anyone.

Problems solved? Tune in tomorrow afternoon when the Giants face the Redskins.

“You’re going to have to play a game to see exactly what happens under the pressure of the game,” Tom Coughlin said. “I know we’ve made progress on the practice field.” How that translates is a question the Redskins surely will ask as they take aim.

Quarterback Mark Brunell has been on a major roll the past two games, receiver Santana Moss was the NFC Offensive Player of the Week for his three-touchdown eruption against the Jaguars and in Antwan Randle El, Ladell Betts and Chris Cooley there are enough versatile weapons in the passing game for new offensive coordinator Al Saunders to work with.

The Giants are the 29thranked pass defense in the NFL, allowing 281 yards per game. With cornerback Sam Madison, free safety Will Demps and McQuarters newly signed as free agents, and cornerback Corey Webster in his first full year as a starter, some degree of growing pains was expected. But not like this.

“Pretty much all the guys in our secondary have been playing three, four years,” Madison said. “You have to at some point in some form or fashion be able to apply what we go through during practice and in the classroom.

I think we understand it, I think we know it.

Are we applying it? No, we’re not applying it. We have guys open here, open there. I can say [this week] we got a lot better, guys communicating a lot more.

“I wanted the media to be confused about who was who.” … TE Jeremy Shockey again did not present himself during the locker room media session. He has not spoken publicly for 11 straight days, since saying he was sorry for stating the Giants were “outplayed and out-coached” in Seattle.

“Everyone knows how he thinks, how he operates,” C Shaun O’Hara said.

“Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.

The guy is intense and you love him for it.” … For the Redskins, CB Shawn Springs (groin) has been ruled out.